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My 10/29/15 Buck

steveOh

Junior Member
750
114
Dayton Area
The property that I hunt is in northern Warren Co. and consists of about 15 acres. Like many properties, this was once a farm which has been divided up into several different parcels of homes and mini-farms. Most of the land is an overgrown field of waist-high weeds with a 200-yard strip of thick, tall honeysuckle with various saplings intermixed, running north and south along the east property line.

To look at the property one would think that it is the least logical place to hunt deer. What we have found out after a few years of hunting here is that the deer, at times, travel through and along the honeysuckle strip which offers the only cover between basically two housing developments. There seems to be enough cover in the developments to hold a few deer. The trail cams that we have up only show about 5-6 does/fawns that are regulars that trek through the property, with a few spikes and fork-horns every now and then. In the past two years only one big-racked buck has tripped the cams, and all but one of the pics where during the night.

My stand setup is just a short walk from the landowners’ house. It is in a little strip of pines and other trees that lie in a strip just twenty yards from a pond on the west and about 23 yards from the fence on the east property line. The 40-50 yard wide strip of honeysuckle mentioned earlier ends about 75 yards shy of the north boundary. The deer have to pass either on the east side of me in the field or on the west side between my stand and the pond. So far most of the time they walk by in the field east of the stand. I should also point out that my hunting partner has a blind set up along the west side of the strip overlooking the weed field. We have taken 3 deer out of his blind the past two years.

Ok now for Thursdays’ hunt…

Before Thursday I had only seen three deer while hunting 6 or 7 times, and the trail cams had not shown very much daytime activity at all. Well, somebody flipped the switch and the deer were moving all day! All morning long the same three fawns and two fork-horns were running/walking back and forth from the honeysuckle strip and the brushy north property line. It seemed like every fifteen minutes there were deer walking past my stand. I kept waiting for the fawns’ momma to show up but I didn’t see a mature doe all morning. Could they already be with bucks this early in the pre rut?

At noon I met up with my partner who was hunting just 200 yards away out of the blind, and he said that he had only seen two little deer.

We went back at it around 4:20 in the afternoon. No sooner than I was in my stand when two of the yearlings and one of the forkeys came by. Throughout the afternoon a few more forkeys/spikes showed up along with a half-rack with 4 pencil-thin tines on one side. They went back and forth all afternoon. Occasionally one of the forkeys would grunt and run toward the fawns and they would scamper off. Sometime after 6 o’clock I heard the familiar sound of a deer running in the strip. Soon a very young doe pops out on a dead run and dives through the bottom two rails of the board fence on the east property line. A few seconds later I heard some grunting and then the half-rack pops out and tries to also go through the fence. After a few unsuccessful tries he backs up and finally figures out that all he needs to do is hop the fence. Apparently it was his first rodeo.

The doe is now in the neighbor’s 1-acre field of knee-high clumpy grass and weeds and the half-rack is in hot pursuit, grunting the whole time. They go around and around in the field 4 or 5 times and eventually the doe heads to the corner of the fence near me and crawls through again. The young buck locks up at the fence, and again, after attempting to go through, he backs up and eyes a clear spot along the brushy fence and jumps over. They both disappear in the tangled mess along the north property line. Wow, that was pretty cool to witness!

As I sat there and watched the wandering parade of youngsters continue, I noticed movement just inside the end of the strip. An unfamiliar deer stepped out into the field and started nibbling on the leaves of the bushes. It was a buck, with antlers as wide as his ears and carrying 4 points per side. As I was sizing him up he suddenly whet on alert and stared down the field pasted my stand. I slowly glanced to the north and saw that it was one of the fork-horns. Soon the 8 pointer slowly made his way paralleling the fence line and stopped in front of my trail cam.

By this time I was going back in forth and my head ‘should I shoot him or not’. One voice said that it was early in the rut and I should wait for a bigger one to show up. The other voice said that I have played that game many, many times before and I ended up with an empty freezer for the year.

He took a few more steps and now was broadside at 15 yards. The voices where still debating in my head. He took a few more steps and stopped again, quartering away a little, when one of the voices won out. I took the shot and saw the arrow with the lighted knock enter near the front ribs, angling towards the opposite front shoulder. He ran the short 15-yard sprint into the brushy edge of the property and for a few seconds I could hear him running on the leaves. Then there was about 5 or 6 seconds of silence, followed by about 8-10 seconds of limbs snapping in one location. I knew then that he did the death crash and was down!

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Bigslam51

Dignitary Member
Supporting Member
25,778
127
Stark County
I waited til I read the whole story before I looked at your pic and by the way you described the buck I expected to see something much smaller. That's a nice buck man, and you should be proud of him! Congrats!
 

bowhunter1023

Owner/Operator
Staff member
48,879
274
Appalachia
I waited til I read the whole story before I looked at your pic and by the way you described the buck I expected to see something much smaller. That's a nice buck man, and you should be proud of him! Congrats!
You should see his measuring stick!

Good read Steve. Thanks for sharing. Great buck to boot!